Forget About Chinese Bunk Data, India's Central Bank Is 'Flying Blind Most Of The Time'

Many accuse China of serving bunk government statistics, even
though the World Bank and most of academia
think they are okay.

Yet the real questionable player is India. India's government
barely has the proper data collection to even know what's going
on in their economy, plus the nation is simply subject to the
random whims of the weather due to its high dependence on
agriculture.

Even in India the spring harvest should help quell
wholesale-price inflation. But these prices are a poor guide for
India’s monetary policy. They tell the central bank a lot about
forces it cannot control, such as the monsoon and the global
commodity markets. But they tell it little about the things it
can hope to influence, such as domestic demand. The RBI,
according to Mr Prior-Wandesforde, is “flying blind most of the
time”.

In its statement, for example, the central bank cited increasing
capacity utilisation as an inflationary threat. By one measure,
prepared by the National Council of Applied Economic Research in
Delhi, capacity utilisation has returned to its pre-crisis peaks.
But India lacks a robust measure of core inflation, or
comprehensive measures of employment and wage pressures.
Inflation watchers must instead take their cues from surveys,
casual observation and telling anecdotes—as well as the weight of
money garlanding politicians’ necks.

Which makes China's economy look like the most transaprent in the
world.